Heroes of the Storm's controversial Hanamura map is being removed and reworked

Even after a round of fixes, HotS players weren't happy with the Overwatch-themed payload-pushing map.

Heroes of the Storm players have not been happy with Hanamura. The Overwatch-themed map where players must escort payloads in order to damage the enemy core was introduced in April of this year, but quickly drew the ire of nearly the entire HotS community.

To begin with, the map objectives are radically different than most HotS maps, making it confusing and difficult for new and seasoned players alike to often discern where they should be attacking and defending. But despite this totally different design, the best strategythat prevailed seemed to be that players should ignore the payloads and just push lanes to destroy enemy keeps. There were also some issues with the Mercenary camps providing too much experience, making the Bribe ability (which captures merc camps instantly) too powerful.

Well, that thread's prayers have been answered. Earlier today, HotS lead game designer Travis McGeathy posted that the Hanamura map is being removed from the battleground rotation for all normal game modes while the team works on improving and fixing the map's problems.

"We’re continually trying to push the boundaries with Heroes of the Storm and Hanamura is no exception," McGeathy said. "It introduces new concepts to the game and some of them have been more successful than others. We’ve made a couple rounds of changes since the battleground's release to address tuning feedback, but have identified a number of more fundamental changes we want to make as well."

There's currently no timeline for when Hanamura will return, but in the meantime players who miss pushing payloads can still do so via HotS custom games. Or, y'know, just go play Overwatch.